


Gates of Eden

by beekeepercain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelic Lore, Biblical References, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, M/M, Pre-Season/Series 09, Prison, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Retrospectively, perhaps he should have been more questioning.  Realistically, how could he have possibly known that God's very favourite would be the one whose orders he should have refused to obey?<br/>Lucifer passed him with confidence and pride, and Gadreel never knew that letting him through that day had sealed his fate as well as the fates of those that he'd been chosen to guard."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gates of Eden

**Author's Note:**

> [Network](http://gadreelnet.tumblr.com/) prompt. This week has by far broken the record of the worst week of my entire existence, but at least there's Gadreel to turn to. Poor sparrow probably has it way worse than I ever will.

 

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ **  
**

**The garden**

In the dark he always remembered the warmth of paradise well. He remembered the scent of the forest, the grass and the fruits the bushes and the flowering trees bore; he remembered the warmth of the sun and the gentle touch of the rain, the perfect sphere of God's intent that he'd been chosen to keep safe from all. Gadreel's duty was to stay there at the gate, day and night, and he'd never had a complaint for the job. Who would have complained for being posted at the edge of the purest, the most perfect of all creation? Few angels had the chance to ever even see this. Even fewer were privileged enough to stay.  
It wasn't a still thing, the garden - it was alive, ever changing, ever moving, ever growing. There were the strangest creatures living inside, beings of flesh and blood, bound with a different essence than what God had used in creating his first children. Many angels regarded these beings as strange and some even called them ugly or unsightly, perhaps out of ignorance or out of jealousy, as in truth God was much more invested in these creatures than He'd ever been in the angels. Gadreel was content with this. They'd said it was because he was practically stationed upon God's palm, always close to Him and always in His favour, but it wasn't necessarily true: Gadreel's duties were not with God, but next to his work at the gates. That was not the same as being inside the Garden. In the long, long time that had slowly passed him by, he'd hardly ever permitted entry for anyone at all. Those were his orders, to never step aside. Only few had the orders from above that could overrun his. Archangels, God's very closest, were the ones he had to accepted orders from, even when they compromised his station and duty - the gates, after all, existed for a purpose; a wall would have been established in its stead if none would have business beyond.  
Retrospectively, perhaps he should have been more questioning. Realistically, how could he have possibly known that God's very favourite would be the one whose orders he should have refused to obey?  
  
In his last day upon the path of Eden, he'd wandered along the closed road inside. This was his territory, his slice of paradise, the closest he would ever come to God's full grace, and he loved what was in that stretch. Grass grew greener there, whereas the ground outside of it was flat and surreal and hardly yet growing any of this beautiful, living thing that would one day stretch far and wide upon the still unshaped realms of Heaven. It was already spreading, however, and so was the fern and the tiny green strings with tiny bright leaves: Gadreel had watched them slowly crawl past the gates and enter the realm of the angels like a slow-motion flood of overflowing Creation.  
  
When he went past the gates towards the true entrance, a strange electric sensation grew in the center of his grace, moving him and stirring something unfamiliar in his mind, something that felt like the realm around him slowly but tightly wrapping itself around his being and constricting him until he could barely move, but the ache of it was so pleasant that he couldn't seem to get enough of it. It grew the further he moved and when he'd stand in the front of the Garden's giant, thick trees with their hanging branches of dark, full green, gazing over the grassy path lit by the gold of the fire from above, watching the tiny winged creatures charge to and fro and the just as feathered but earthbound, funny-looking creatures with no beaks and with sharp teeth and claws examine them like he did from below completely content as they were, Gadreel felt as if his grace was failing him and he'd soon break apart in the wind and scatter upon all that he saw like a morning's mist. It made him shiver and stay still, filled with awe and fear and praise for the Creator of it all, even if he truly understood none of it nor saw the purpose in the seeming chaos of the beauty laid in plain sight.  
  
A brown, large being with cloven hooves and branch-like bone formations spanning from its proud, beautiful head followed him towards the gates making strange sounds as it examined him, its large soft nostrils flaring as it sniffed his essence and tried to understand what he was just as much as Gadreel tried to make sense of what it was, what was its place in this all. They parted in silence as the creature stopped unwillingly half-way through the path and turned to slowly walk back, never failing a step on its four slender legs that looked much too thin to support the weight of its muscular form.

Gadreel knew what resided in the Garden. Angels were whispering about it everywhere, as if secretly, but all letting their messages leak in hopes that he or anyone would sate their curiosity. These beings of flesh that God had shaped for so long, kept within the confines of the Garden - were they truly in His image? Did they look anything like angels, and if, how could grace ever take the form of blood, flesh and bone? Were the most sacred creatures warriors like them, or beings of quiet wonder like those that stayed near the gates? Most eagerly were asked the burning questions: had God truly given them the gift of free will - were they free to exercise it, use it to their own ends without asking questions, without looking to their Father for permission and guidance? How could such a concept ever work in practice?

Gadreel, like all other angels, felt a sense of great discomfort at the concept of free will and full independence from God's orders. At the same time there was a well-hidden, pressing desire to understand, to know more - a secret, quiet jealousy that made itself present when he thought of these creatures that were full on their very own and held creation sealed within them to become gods in their own right. How could anyone use such a gift, such insurmountable strength, and how could _anything_ contain it, much less something as fragile as flesh? Gadreel had seen injury, but not yet in these beings, and still he knew; he'd studied them enough to learn that the structure that contained the soul was not like grace. It could be broken by touch of not a single determined weapon but all in their surroundings if turned against them. That was something he was protecting the Garden from: things that would wish harm upon those that dwelled within.

Lucifer passed him with confidence and pride, the very essences of his grace, and Gadreel never knew that letting him through that day had sealed his fate as well as the fates of those that he'd been chosen to guard.

 

**The dungeon**

They came before he knew what crime he'd committed. He did not fear them as they approached, even though there was anger in them; what angered the other angels had little to do with him, the guardian whose only concern was the green gate behind him. But when they ceased him - and in all his existence he'd never known such binds that were applied on him, the strength of them like the essence around him had been woven into tight ropes to which his grace was nothing but soft, unresisting and powerless matter that could not struggle once captured by them - he did feel fear, and he felt betrayed and confused and angry at what they were doing. How dared they take him from his purpose? He did not know most of these angels - not yet. He would, in time, know all of them very well. In the lead was Michael himself: Gadreel had never seen such rage, such utter hatred, as swirled in the archangel's grace then.  
Despite his complaints, his anger and pleas for them to at least consider the consequences of taking the guardian from his post, he was dragged along and away like none of that mattered. As if he wouldn't have come willingly at orders: the angels simply saw no need to communicate with someone like him, and the anger they felt was clearly communicated to Gadreel even if he did not know what he'd done to deserve it. He believed it to be a mistake, a misunderstanding - a miscommunication in the orders. But _Michael_ was there. Surely Michael knew his orders through and through?  
  
The further they moved, the more angels Gadreel saw. They all looked at him like he was something filthy, something completely unsightly, and his concern and confusion grew. Within that, there was a new experience: a pain similar to that of injury, but with none he could find, no trace of damage that he could feel, not even where his binds grew heavy upon his form - not yet.

The angels around him all knew what he yet did not. They were certain in their fury and disgust. He tried to ask but suddenly found his connection cut: he had no means of communicating, only listening, and there was nothing to be heard. Instead a heavy sense of grief was present as a weight on the net that he was still a part of, a great sense of loss and fear, and eventually he turned from it to try and protect himself from what he couldn't understand.  
  
The dungeons of Heaven were guarded much more heavily than Eden had ever been. The realm had two gates, each with four guardians, and Gadreel didn't know what was inside. When the sight grew in front of him he realised he would soon enough find out, and the rest of his kind, the rank of shields, turned from him as Michael led them on. The rest they greeted, grave and gravelly like the strike of thunder that had from time to time rained life upon the lush greenery of the Garden, but when Gadreel passed them, each of them was as if he was invisible and not truly even there. Past the gates was no green of trees, no grass, not a live being to be seen: just endless darkness in which the graces of the angels glowed akin to the fire that resided in the sky of Eden, just shades dimmer, colder. The whole place was cold - its invisible ceiling, if there was one, hung high above the blackness, unseen and echoing like a void. Yet the worst was not the dread-inspiring scenery but the feeling of being torn away that grew stronger in Gadreel now. The further in they went, the less he could feel the network of angels - it was as if one by one all of his siblings ceased to exist, leaving him alone with these beacons he could barely recognise and had no means of connecting to. Panic took place where his calm had resided, driving away his trust in this all being something that could yet be resolved. The aura of the realm told him whichever crime it was that he'd unknowingly committed, he was guilty of it and the punishment that would follow would be well deserved.  
  
His binds wound around his grace more tightly, causing tears in the fabric of the energy he was made of, burning and cutting and stinging as they grew heavier and harder against him. At Michael's command they stopped, and two angels grabbed him and his chains and suddenly he was tethered to a wall of smooth, cold, wet stone. In front of him were bars and on the other side of them the angels whose faces were all unknown to him now.

"God is gone, Gadreel."

Those were the last words Michael spoke to him.

 

**The torture**

Time stretched differently here. Heaven was in its essence a place where the flow of time had no relevancy, but the Prison was different. Here, time was a sluggish thing that suffocated Gadreel the longer he stayed. His being was not one that was made to stand erosion, and time in its very core was a thing that wore lesser elements down. In here, moment after moment weakened him like sandpaper would a stone, or like the water that trickled down the natural walls of his cell slowly carved pathways to its seemingly unyielding surface.

The silence was absolute, and the only sounds in it those of drops hitting the stone floors all around his cell and in the unmeasurable halls in front and behind of it, only cut off once in an eternity by the sounds of heavy doors opening and closing. Gadreel slowly grew certain he was blind: that the world around him was not black, it was his vision that was gone. He reached with his lightless hands towards the bars of his prison and caressed the surface of them, long slender fingers bending around them only to find them much too solid to twist or push from his way. His expectations had been low to begin with and the truth was that he needed no bars to keep him where he was. Grief alone was enough to do it, but with it came the fear this place held him down with and which he could not fight, and as the final seal upon his fate was the crushing guilt that he'd felt since Michael had turned and left.

 _God is gone_. Those words were not an announcement: they were a declaration of his guilt. It was his fault - somehow, he'd driven God away. He had not even seen God, and still, here he was. Most of the time the very idea of it was too heavy for him to understand. How could God possibly be gone? Would He ever be back? How could all that possibly be his fault, when he'd done nothing but followed the orders he'd been given?  
  
His grace lit with immeasurable hope when he finally caught a glimpse of another angel approaching his cell and soon after another following by. This was it, he thought. They were coming to let him out. The nightmare was over, everything would be well again.  
He greeted them by the gate and reached for them even as the chains held him back, but neither returned a glance towards him. The front took a hold of his chain while the taller guardian stood by the open gate and a premonition settled inside Gadreel. He tensed; he even considered fighting before realising it would do him no good and that he had no wish to hurt these angels that had been sent here. They were following their orders. The only thing Gadreel could wish for was orders for him to follow as well, but it was as if he'd been deemed too lowly to be addressed at all, and instead of words or any form of communication, he was led by the chain through the darkness towards somewhere he did not wish to go.  
The further he followed them, the harder the cold and terror gripped him from within. His feet froze, turned heavy like those of the animals he'd guarded, taking hold of the ground as if the ground was pulling him towards it. Before he could prevent himself or reason with his instinct, he tugged the chain in an attempt to turn, and immediately the angel that followed him took a firm hold of him with such force it caused pain and couldn't be unintentional: he was pushed forwards, and when he cast a surprised glance towards the one that followed him, the angel was holding out his blade.

There was light at the end of this dungeon. A yellow light shone through a door but it was not warm and it was not inviting; it was cold and cruel and it hurt Gadreel to look at it, and he sensed the unwillingness in the two angels he did not know by name as well. They were less and less eager to follow through the closer they got but this was nothing in comparison to how their prisoner felt. Gadreel knew he had no choice - inside there, whatever it would be, was the one place he would have given everything he had to never have to step inside.  
It was becoming a routine at that stage, finding new lows to which he had no will to be pushed to but found himself unable to resist.  
  
They entered the light and the door behind them closed with an echoing low collision that shook the matter below Gadreel's held-down feet.  
  
Centuries, millenias later he would still recall this event and know that it was the worst he'd ever been put through. He'd been so unmarred, so complete and still a stranger to suffering when he'd been brought there, but that was not the whole of it.  
The angels restrained him so that he had no chance to move. With unnecessary force they spread his wings, restrained them like the rest of him in that position, and cut, tore and pulled out the grace that allowed him flight; there was no pain that could match the agony of what was done to him, nothing that could in the slightest even resemble the feeling of having such an important part of what he was taken from him in this manner. He had no plans of escape - why would they mutilate him like this, how could an angel possibly take from another what made them whole with so much anger as if he was not one of them at all?  
Gadreel found his thoughts escaping to the creatures of flight he'd grown so fond of in the Garden. He could now see as his own form became crippled and as his useless struggles faded to stunned suffering those beings crashing to the ground, breaking the cores of their wings and crying in pain to the blue sky that reigned them from above, begging for release or return to the gentle currents of air. He'd never experienced such a moment: no creature was harmed in the Garden, as everything in it was as God intended, but now he could feel the pain of these beings in him as if it was happening right there and then to them as it was to him, and for the moment he felt both saddened and relieved that he was not alone in his pain and that he was not the only spirit trapped, grounded and confined, wishing for an end.

Despite his will to contain himself even at the face of the cruelty he was subjected to, his grace produced his blade which his fingers firmly grasped in vain as he had no means to swing it or otherwise even move it. The angel on his right side took a hold of his hand, a firm grip that refused his attempt at connection to the grace that formed it, and to Gadreel's shock wrestled the blade from him and took it away. An angel's blade is not only his weapon, it is as much a part of him as his wings are, and to have it taken was as painful as the feeling of his long, strong secondary flight feathers cut or hacked in half leaving the shaft bleeding grace. The manner in which his wings were reshaped was grotesquely uneven and terrible to look at, but the loss of form was the last of Gadreel's worries. When he felt the restraints of his wings falling apart and into nothing, the bleeding limbs fell toward the ground with no strength remaining in them, and as the angel tried to move them - pull them against his shape for cover - the pain that washed over him was so strong he felt his vision swaying from it. His fingers spread to seek the blade but it was far from him - he could feel it there, just nowhere near his reach anymore.

The way back was a blur to him: he did not know how long they walked, only how agonizing it was to drag the bleeding wings behind him as he could no longer lift them even far enough from the ground to prevent the broken parts from rubbing onto the icy floor. In his cell he found the chains removed; a minor relief, as he collapsed onto the ground and found himself trying and trying to find the parts of him that were no longer there and that he could no longer even feel. In time, the bleeding stopped, leaving the injuries stiff with dead grace and with the ache of corruption throbbing at the seams.

 

**Abner**

The torture became a routine. It wasn't timed - there was no telling if Gadreel was to stay in his prison for hours or perhaps centuries at a time, but inevitably it happened, and when it did, it came in bunches; two, three, six times in row before a long break cut the chain and left him wondering if he'd finally been forgotten. He didn't wait for forgiveness anymore and neither did he long for freedom: both things were redundant. The thing he had for himself was the quiet in between the pain and in those moments he spaced out, barely alive huddled in one end or the other of his cell, never stepping to the faint light that he'd started registering and which barely illuminated the center of the prison. He learned to dream as his memories began to take control and reshape themselves to ghosts of new experiences, replacing the lack of stimulation for his mind in this endless night he'd been locked into, and in his mind he created ways to undo his crime. By now, inbetween the lashes, the cutting and the senseless beatings he'd learned that Lucifer on that long day he'd left behind had not followed God's orders and had instead knowingly broken against them, and that the angels regarded Gadreel as not only the accomplice of the traitor's but his equal in fault and blame. Unfortunately for him, he was the one that had not fallen. Wherever Lucifer was now, Gadreel had realised, it was probably better than where he'd been taken.

Irony in it all was that he knew there were few who felt more torn and broken by the Lightbringer's treachery than he was; few mourned the loss of their Father more than Gadreel did. Had he known, he would have gladly fought and died at the Gate following his orders, but one truth remained even amongst the dark that surrounded him. It was the distant knowledge of his innocence - he'd had no way of knowing what the archangel had intended. He'd been told to not ask questions. He'd been told to obey them when commanded, even when it compromised his duty, because God spoke to the archangels directly. No more. Now God spoke to no one. God was _gone_. Gone where and how - perhaps no one knew. But the longer He was absent the angrier, the less unified the angels became. And instead of seeking for organization in the midst of the chaos, they came to Gadreel to relieve the sense of loss and desperate hope for direction and order. They hurt him until he was closer to dead than alive, and then they locked him up so that they could take him out again when he was barely strong enough to take it, but strong enough to not die too soon.

Gadreel was deaf to the sounds of the water and the doors by the time this routine broke. He barely acknowledged the angels approaching before they opened the door of his cell - at the realisation Gadreel pulled himself closer to the wall in a vain attempt at hiding, but the four angels did not come to him. Instead, they threw something in and left.  
  
The something, Gadreel soon realised, was an injured angel whose wings had been mutilated like his own were, and in the unmoving, barely flickering grace he saw like an echo of himself, a fearful condemned whose crime did not matter to the worst of them all. He was too conditioned to accept the appearance of another as anything but the prelude to inevitable suffering, but this one was clearly not here to punish him - he was here to be punished, and had already taken the worst of it.  
Time ticked by in the form of water trickling onto the bumpy, slippery stone floor, and it could have formed a new river by the time Gadreel finally budged. Trembling and with his grace flickering nervously he approached the other, and when the stranger did not turn against him but instead curled up tighter expecting more pain just as Gadreel had expected, he finally settled by the newcomer's side.

It had been too long when he finally dared to bring his hand over the bruised shoulder of the other's and immediately felt the connection between them. He'd long since lost the memory of how it felt to not be alone and rejected but to find another echoing to him, responding to his desperate call for company in the loneliness that had twisted his mind into a prison of its own kind. His fingers bent around the shape of the other's grace and he allowed his palm to caress down along the arm, in awe and excitement at this newly rediscovered sense of belonging. It took him a while to just continue brushing across the other's body to realise the pain that communicated to him through the connection they'd sealed. The revelation was grim; of course, the agony the other felt had to be excruciating to the point where Gadreel's own paled in comparison. He remembered it well.  
With firm hands he undid the protective curl – the younger angel barely struggled but he felt the connection closing for a while as the other turned defensive with what little strength was left in the mauled grace to spare for such a feat. Gadreel paused for a moment just to show he meant no harm; it was as if the art of words had been completely taken from him during his time locked up and he no longer knew how to communicate directly, but it seemed it was enough to allow time to pass without further force for the anxious peace to fall between them again. As soon as he felt the connection returning, he moved his palms upon the worst of the other's wounds and forced his own battered grace to flow into them, healing them as well as he could, and he was overjoyed at the feel of the bleeding pausing and the cuts turning smaller and shallower. His fingertips slid gently across the bent and torn stumps of feathers, closing the ends of the shafts with smaller effort than he'd expected, and finally he felt the angel he held stirring, searching for the sight of him.

They watched one another for the longest while, Gadreel's palms settled by the other's shoulders to rest: he could feel the suspicion in the younger turning to disbelief and then to flickering faint hope.  
  
"I know you," the angel said.  
  
Gadreel nodded.  
Everyone knew the one who'd let sin enter the Garden.  
  
The other hesitated, finally gathering up enough strength to readjust to sit in front of Gadreel, still watching him carefully.  
"I'm Abner," he finally made an introduction.  
  
Gadreel nodded again, a smile on him as he turned his head down.

 

**The fall**

At first it was an uneasy co-existence for them. In time it transformed: Abner was the new plaything, the fresh and more exciting, less calloused target for the violent bursts in the angels that still served Heaven, and after each and every time when he was thrown back in the cell, Gadreel did his best to look after him and tend to his wounds as well as he could, the extent depending largely on the scale of his own injuries that by no means lessened despite the introduction of another unfortunate outcast.

It took time for Gadreel to remember how to communicate, as in the long silence he'd lost track of how the proper connection was forged and what was the proper way to offer his grace toward that link in order to form an understandable flow of information, but slowly by example he relearned, and with this ability the silence was no longer as unbearable as it had been. When he finally did speak, they barely made mention of their crimes - just enough that they both had an understanding. It did not matter, not in here; Gadreel remained the lowest of the low and whatever had landed Abner in the pit with him and whether he was guilty as charged or a surrogate for the faults of others did not matter. Instead the words he spoke were those he was most comfortable with: that he was there to protect the younger, that he'd do his best to make sure no harm came to him at all. Of course these were lies, but he _was_ a design guardian, and this was the only task he'd ever been expected to hold. Abner was his Eden now - whether he could keep him safe or not was secondary to the drive that kept him trying. His pain became relief in the prospect of knowing it meant that currently, Abner was safe. Whenever he was tortured, he was useful in a sense that gave him strength to endure it all. The more he resisted before breaking the more violent the sessions turned, and the more violent they turned the more he resisted. He may have been crippled and his blade may have been taken from him, but that did not mean he didn't have what it took to hold against blows: his armour was in his grace, in his very essence, it could not be taken from him. And the stronger his will was to hold up against the blows as long as he could, the more endurance he gained as his grace returned to the purpose it had been created for. He was a warrior again, the one with the shield standing at the front: nothing would come between him and that anymore.  
  
And when he finally broke down, barely hanging onto life, he found relief in Abner's grace connecting with his once again in the cell they shared, safe and sound as far as either was concerned. The other angels seemed to not realise the relevancy of their relationship to his newly found hardiness and perhaps simply out of ignorance they allowed them to remain united. It was a desperate connection; they were one another's only ones, and an angel is never an individual enough to not need another by his side. In the absence of other links to latch onto they became one in essence, so tightly knit that it was hard to tell if an experience stemmed from one or the other, and as such they also shared the burden of torture, leading to the pain halving between them and becoming easier to endure as they recovered. The worst moments were those when they were separated, the feeling of that link between them severing through distance in the thick aura of the prison as one was dragged off for torture and the other stayed behind, but neither ever showed the agony of it to ensure they wouldn't be forever cut apart again.  
It was a secret in plain sight what they slowly became: they were never far from one another even when the angels came to take one of them, sometimes not only connected by the means of a link between them but by physical closeness, grace to grace from one part or the other, perhaps a wing brought over the other's shape for comfort or fingers tangled until the distance forced them apart. Nobody wanted to see it and thus no one ever did. It suited them well enough.  
  
Even time seemed to loosen its hold of them now that they didn't have to bear it alone, and it mattered little if it had been thousands of years more or just a couple of centuries when the events began. They both felt it; at first in the sudden lack of angels to take them away from each other and then in the complete stillness of the realm that surrounded them. The water stopped trickling. The light grew stronger, illuminating the magnificent structures of the halls that held them away from Heaven's light. The walls shook from time to time and strange echoes carried from the world outside to where they existed, forgotten.  
Then came the first tremor. It was like the rumbling of the rage of God Himself, shaking down large rocks from the ceiling and then calming to a still quiet. From unseen cells, cries of fear reached them, but neither Gadreel nor Abner felt much shock at the event. Concern, yes, but fear was no longer a thing they experienced as long as they were standing side by side; all of this was worrysome, but not something to cause panic.

The second tremor shattered the bars of the cell.  
They were free but they did not move, not for weeks, so accustomed they'd become to the round depression they had inhabited for an uncertain portion of forever. They gathered up pieces of their prison and piled them up out of the way just to have some sense of order, and while they existed in a state of concerned bafflement they watched other prisoners one by one break free of their small holes, each in a different state of healing. None was as scarred and broken as Gadreel, and each time one passed them by perhaps looking for an exit, the older felt Abner moving a little bit closer as if to offer him some protection from what had already happened.  
  
When they finally did move, many of the rest had already wandered off and disappeared. They left the hall where they had been confined and entered another, then another and another and another, strangers to sudden freedom and still held back from walking out by the invisible chains of guilt that they wore.  
  
The final wave shattered everything. Heaven broke underneath them, or rather their shapes broke through Heaven and they fell, surrounded by flames and tearing further and further and further away from one another until it was all just the pain of fire in their wings and the sudden force of connections reaching towards them from every direction, some disappearing as soon as they were forged and others staying as Gadreel felt his ability to contact the rest of his kind suddenly reappear at the same time he lost track of the only angel he could spare concern for.  
He descended without much elegance and when his form hit the mortal realm, for a fleeting moment he was certain he'd ceased to exist entirely. The network inside him wavered, snapped in and out of existence, and he tried and tried to comb through it to find Abner but he had no means of managing the flood of information. Much of it spoke of a fallen angel by the name Castiel; much of it was grieving. All of it was loud and chaotic and unlike the calm Gadreel barely remembered from his time before the prison.  
  
In a flurry a strange feeling captured him: flesh took him in, contained him, and offered to him a surge of energy that gave him the strength to live.  
He could not recall the vessel's consent, could not recall himself asking for it, but there he was, collapsed in a room with a crumbled piece of paper in his hand, aching and confused and bleeding grace into the realm in which it could not be seen - inside his grasp sharing his newly acquired form was another life, something that still pulsed with energy, and he reached for it in confusion.  
  
It led him out the door and into a place so familiar it took him by surprise: in the unpredictable flight of winged creatures across the deep blue of the sky with a great blaze at the center of it, and in the barks of the ones with sharp teeth, he was taken by shock and an ache that stopped him and forced him still and silent. This was Eden: this was Eden grown out of control. Paradise had not been lost, it had not withered and died of corruption as he'd been told. It had been released, freed, brought to fulfillment and this was its full design, the one God had prepared for it all along. It was now filled to the brim with free will and wild creation, twist after turn the pure glory of the Creation continuing in each and every living thing that now shaped the canvas which had been given as the greatest of gifts to them to turn to their own image in turn.  
His crime had been the key to unlock this all, just a finishing stroke in the grand design; his suffering but the consequence of ignorance in the chaos left after the masterpiece was finished and the Father of it all had turned His attention elsewhere.  
  
With the faintest of smiles Gadreel realised that herein lay his chance to prove to his lost brothers and sisters the true nature of him and gain redemption in their eyes. Maybe soon he would no longer be the one despised but the one revered, understood instead of silenced and tortured.  
Perhaps here he could be the hero instead. 


End file.
